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Printed at the Request of the 
Central Democratic Club 



The Protective Tariff 
vs. Free Trade 



Speech of 

T. K. VAN DYKE 

HARRISBURG, 1>A.. 

Advocating Free Trade 



HFt7SB 



r 

i The Protective Tariff 
vs. Free Trade 




The Protective Tariff vs. Free Trade 



Speech of T. K. Van Dyke 
November 28, 1913 



The Central Democratic Club of Harrisburg, Pa., having 

designated that on Friday evening, November 28, 1913 

the subject for discussion would be "The 

Protective Tariff vs. Free Trade" 



Mr. VanDyke said : 

"Mr. President and Fellow Members of the Central Demo- 
cratic Club:" 

Justice is the law of life, monopoly the creature of legisla- 
tion, poverty the product of privilege and only liberty a living 
inspiration. 

A high protective tariff, is a misnomer, the government only . 
being able to furnish police protection. It should be called a 
plunder tariff, for if all were equally protected under it, no one 
would be especially benefited, and as they are not some one must 
be cheated. In round numbers in 19 10 the total number of Amer- 
ican workingmen not working in protected industries was 36 
1/4 millions. Those employed in the protected industries 1^ 
millions. If the latter got the wages the tariff enabled the manu- 
facturers to pay, then about three and three quarters per cent, 
would get these wages to pay it out in protection priced necessi- 
ties, while ninety-six and one-third per cent, of the workmen 
would have nothing added by protection to their pay, while they 
bought in the highest market. Protection, therefore, benefits the 
American workman in the same ratio as ninety-six is less than 
four. And this is followed by the fact that unprotected laborers 
are the best paid, and shows how preposterous are the claims of 
high protection supporters. 

How High Protection Works. 

It is intolerable and indefensible. It is wrong in principle, 
vicious when put into practice, an unjust restriction on trade and 

3 



destructive of the natural wealth and resources of any country. 
It fosters monopoly, is the father of trusts whose oldest son is 
the money trust, the black sheep of the family. It impoverishes 
the many to benefit a favored class. It stifles the spirit of free- 
dom, of which the true American boasts. If followed to its 
logical conclusion, it would result in a prohibitory tariff which 
would soon ruin the country. If a protective tariff is a good 
thing, a prohibitory tariff would be better, for the reason that 
if prosperity comes from such a tariff we cannot have it too high 
and if it does not, we ought not to have it at all. There is no 
escape from that conclusion. If a tariff duty of from 25 to 300 
per cent, given to the favored manufacturer has brought about 
the general prosperity we may at times have enjoyed, why not 
raise it to 1000 per cent., cease all trading across the pond and 
thus make all of us always happy and every man, woman and 
child in America rich and prosperous? 

It really is special privilege in its worst form. It means millions 
for the few from the dollars of the many. It encloses the land 
and restricts its resources. It limits opportunity to work, hinders 
industry and trade and by denying to man his natural right to 
live, at times, takes even life itself. 

It never did, nor can it ever create labor value, for no act of 
congress can do that. Such an act can and does create special 
privilege. It can and does unjustly distribute labor value. It 
despoils labor of the product to which it is entitled, and this in 
great measure explains why under its blighting influence there 
are so many phenomenally rich, while the overwhelming mass of 
our citizens are correspondingly poor, why enterprise is throttled 
and labor walks the streets hunting for work. 

Look at it a moment. If a tariff makes prosperity, the higher 
the tariff the greater must be the prosperity. China is an example 
of how that kind of prosperity has been vindicated and works. 

The woolen industry in Massachusetts has been protected over 
100 per cent., the laborers in those mills receiving from eight to 
twelve dollars a week wages. Children under age, ill fed and clad 
working with their parents to help keep the family from starving. 
Every time the high tariff was threatened the manufacturers 
swarmed the halls of congress, like the government paupers they 
are, crying "Give us more pap or we perish. We must have it 
to pay American wages to our protected workingmen." Is it any 
wonder that those voters have at last got their eyes open on that 
question and that Massachusetts in the last four elections has 
gone Democratic on the tariff issue, and that the Republican party 
in that state, is now third in the race. 

In former years many Republican congressmen favored the 
Chinese wall around this country. And if any exists to-day, one 



of them to be consistent, should offer a bill, the title to which 
should read "An act to make prosperous all of the people of 
the United States by placing prohibitory duties on all articles 
of import and stopping the wheels of trade with foreign coun- 
tries, to the end that the wage earners in this country, who have 
heretofore received the most direct benefit from the protective 
tariff, may hereafter have their wages raised as high as they want 
them." 

You really must always take scare of the poor American work- 
ingman, at least in the wording of these bills and in all Repub- 
lican platforms. For thirty years the cry "protection to Ameri- 
can labor," while the favored manufacturer walked off with the 
swag, has been sufficient to delude the majority of these laborers 
and many other apparently intelligent people, and it would be 
really cruel, as that has satisfied them, ever to refuse them the 
pleasure of reading of their prosperity and wealth, to be still 
further enhanced, by the proposed bill. 

Any workman, or any one else for that matter, who has studied 
this question and believes that a high tariff ever put a single dol- 
lar in his pocket he did not earn, not considering the pockets of 
the manufacturer; or that he would not have received without 
it or not be receiving far more dollars, with the sails of our com- 
merce in every sea and panics impossible and unknown, and 
for the same work, and had not the high tariff outrage been 
perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, is bone-headed enough 
to believe anything. 

He is in that class of tariff monomaniacs who claim to believe 
that the more a man is taxed the richer he becomes. That iii 
some inexplicable way unjust taxation puts money into the pockets 
of all the people. That the bountiful crops and wealth evidenced 
by labor applied to land, would have perished from the earth if 
the Republican party had not first enacted the Morrill tariff of 
1861 and perpetuated and increased its duties ever since. He 
hates a foreign laborer who has produced something he would 
exchange with him, on even terms, each obtaining thereby what 
he desires, preferring to pay an increased and unjust price to the 
American manufacturer who puts the difference in his pocket. 
He regards every laborer not living on this side of the Atlantic 
as his natural enemy and is positive of his own animosity. To 
him a rainy day, dark and dreary, is preferable to clear air and 
bright sunlight, and high plunder tariffs are preferable to free- 
dom of trade. 

The First Protectionist. 

He worships the first theoretical protectionist of whom I have 
read, whose name was Joshua and who did not want nature 
to take its course and if the whole story was told probably went 



around and said "I don't see, under this foreign sunshine, how 
I am going to live" and then taxed all the rest of the people to 
the limit, before he permitted old Sol to go on with his business. 
Being the first protectionst, Joshua, must have then gone to bed 
and worried himself half sick about the mills closing or which 
might close, the reduction of wages and about the men who would 
be thrown out of work, and not have slept for many nights, like 
all highly protected latter day manufacturers act and feel, when 
they reaiize their men need more money. 

The Greatest Pauper Laborer. 

So to-day when the high priest of protection goes forth on a 
clear day he naturally curses that greatest of all pauper laborers 
which for untold ages, has toiled, without any remuneration or 
strike, with unremitting labor, matchless efficiency and tireless 
energy, to produce food, shelter, clothing and warmth for all 
the sons of men. If he lives in Harrisburg and is a stand-pat 
Republican he murmurs aloud and says what a great blunder to 
permit that foreign competition and how very much better, all 
this work could be accomplished by home industries and the Har- 
risburg Heat, Light & Power Company under a high protective 
tariff thus securing the unlimited employment of every American 
workingman, at stupendous wages and by means of the ex- 
clusion from our land of the Pauper Sun with all his works. 

He hates a clear day preferring to go with a lighted coal oil 
lamp into a dark room and look at the gold seal on a railroad 
bond, for this kind never had or ever will have, an inspiration 
above a dollar. 

And so he cries; "No cheap and plentiful light from abroad 
for us, home dug petroleum every time, against the external 
competition of daylight. Our own market for gas, tallow dips, 
candlesticks and gas burners. This cheap solar foreigner is the 
worst enemy of the American wage-earner, a secret enemy bought 
by British gold and we should protect ourselves from his depreda- 
tions by making our own sunlight by the labor of Americans 
and this particularly for the reason that the sun is detrimental 
to agriculture and ruinous to the sheep industry, for other- 
wise we would consume billions of sheep where we now con- 
sume hundreds if tallow was used as it should be, and the pro- 
ducts of the farm will grow far more rapidly and productively 
if raised under violet glass, at a uniform temperature, the year 
around." 

A High Protection Giant. 

And so the new campaign for the protection to American labor 
and the building up of the new industry starts, and this new giant, 
along side of which the Standard Oil Company, or the United 

6 



States Steel Corporation would look like five cents, begins its 
depredations by covering Dauphin county with a glass roof sub- 
sequently to be extended over the United States, the whole build- 
ing heated and lighted as near perfection in the latter particular as 
possible and superior to the sun in the former, because the Har- 
risburg Heat, Light & Power Company is noted for supplying uni- 
form temperature at any desired heat. 

This at once would set and keep all the iron mills booming and 
innumerable other industries would follow suit. The demand for 
all kinds of labor would be prodigious. Workmen could ask and 
get any wage they desired. Labor could not be supplied. No 
tariff or tax on labor the free trade labor would have to be im- 
ported as usual and all labor unions which have for their object 
the protection of wages would go out of business. All the foreign 
laborers would be invited over from the old country, as they al- 
ways have been under protection when the manufacturers needed 
them and they would be asked as usual to compete in this coun- 
try with the laborers already here, most of whom are foreigners 
any how; — and still not enough. Nothing doing in the old 
country. Hurrah I Everybody and thing working Here, foreign 
and domestic except the bonds and four times watered stock of 
the stock holders and coupon clippers, the priviledged few, and 
they won't work. The latter, however, at once get ready to pay 
a dividend of four hundred per cent, for the first three months 
and to issue a stock bonus of ten thousand per cent, which might 
be denominated cutting a light melon, for prosperity is here, with 
a vengeance. 

High Taxation and Money Plenty. 

While all this is going on every one would be black with money, 
because it is a fundamental doctrine of all high tariff plunderers, 
that a high tariff, simply breeds money, you can hear them say, 
"what is the use of buying at an honest price if you don't have 
any money to buy with." The claim is, that the more unjust the 
tax, the more money you have to meet it. True, the volume of 
money remains practically the same, but they claim that high 
tariff taxation enables everyone although the volume of money 
remains the same to get more money than would be possible 
under low or no taxation. If they are right under low tariff 
taxation or no such taxation all the money in this country would 
disappear and a nickel would be worth its weight in radium but 
no one could buy, if money was the medium of exchange. The 
force of their arguments is well illustrated by the idea just pre- 
sented and could be brought about by the blotting out of the 
sun. If the industry referred to would be a good, thing for this 
country then the high plunder tariff is a good thing. If I thought 
for a moment any protectionist really believed such nonsense and 



did not know they only advocated protection through invincible 
ignorance, or party spirit, or because they wanted to loot the 
people according to law, and for their own selfish interests, or 
as in the case of workingmen were driven into it by the men 
higher up, I would be tempted to exclaim with Shakespeare, "Oh, 
judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their 
reason." 

This sun photograph illustrates the plunder doctrine and it is 
not altogether a fanciful picture. Bastiat's famous petition to the 
Chamber of Deputies, by certain protectionists, of France, de- 
manded that the sun be suppressed, because they were not getting 
rich fast enough and the tallow chandlers asked that same body 
to suppress gas because it was ruinous to their business and the 
sheep industry. 

The Same Old Story. 

It is the same story in all times, and all countries and no mat- 
ter what the party name. The Democratic party fighting for 
all the people and the aristocratic party fighting for the few. 
Bull-Moosers, Washington-Protesters, Roosevelt-Progressives, 
Single-Taxers, Socialists — or what not, come with the founders 
of the Republic and the advocates of fundamental principles or 
waste your strength on side issues with its enemies. 

In our country the born aristocrat, Thomas Jefferson, first 
enunciated the immortal principles of the Democratic Party. 
He is as much alive to-day as if he was here present. That is 
why the party lives and cannot die so long as the Republic 
survives. 

Alexander Hamilton of lowly berth, became the aristocrat. He 
is dead as a door nail and the Republican Party wnich he founded 
will soon follow suit. 

Time fights on the side of right and I would ask Republicans 
to explain on any other theory the longevity of the Democratic 
Party. 

The high tariff doctrine in this country has been of malignant 
growth and its hypocritical advocates have frequently changed 
their reasons why the people should submit to it, mixing those 
reasons for many, many years with cries of the "bloody shirt" 
and never failing to raise a large corruption fund to prove their 
faith and as an evidence of their philantrophy. We all know 
their old tricks. If anvthing happens in the country, even if 
the bee crop fails, the Democrats are to blame. If things are in 
pretty good shape, "you can thank us Republicans for it." 

The Biggest Fraud. 
This, their biggest fake was a growth and the reasons given 
various. 

First as a war measure for revenue to carry on the government 
8 



during the war. Second to protect infant industries. Third 
some for the infants but more for high wages to American la- 
borers. Fourth for the protection of American laborers in in- 
dustrial plants, particularly iron and steel. Fifth to protect the 
farmer, whom up to that time they had not mentioned with of 
course high wages to industrial laborers. 

Never, however, did the cat get out of the bag until the Re- 
publican National platform of 1908 announced their graft and 
the real reason for the imposition, viz: "Profit" for the manu- 
facturer. 

The Morrill tariff was the only legal and constitutional one 
of the lot, being primarily levied to pay debts, for the common 
defense and general welfare. All the others were openly alleged to 
pay bounties to a favored class, against the general welfare and 
were not uniform throughout the United States. 

Such tariffs were first condemned in this country by Jefferson in 
the Declaration of Independence wherein he charged George III 
"with cutting off our trade with all parts of the world and im- 
posing taxes on us without our consent." 

The predominant cry of the tariff Barons has, however, always 
been that the workingman got the benefit of it. They proved 
this was true by selling their products cheaper abroad than they 
did at home and which practice they still continue. 

If the workingmen will just recall the case of steel rails they 
will see how true is the claim. When sold to the American con- 
sumer from $30 to $32 a ton they were carried across the dreaded 
pond and laid down in London, freight and carrying charges 
paid in addition, at from $20 to $25 a ton. This delighted the 
laborers in the mills where they were made, because they found 
out that the difference of from $7 to $10 a ton which Americans 
had to pay, all went into the pockets of the workingmen in 
accordance with the Republican National platform and which 
in 1908 put the matter thus and demanded "A reasonable profit 
to American industries to maintain the high standard of living 
of the wage earners of this country, who are the most direct bene- 
ficiaries of the protective system," which is not only a lie but il- 
legal and dishonest if true. The workmen in most cases be- 
lieved it and perhaps we can recall how they proved their belief. 
Their beautiful carriages and limousines, with liveried cockaded 
coachmen, filled with their be jeweled wives, dressed in the latest 
styles soon blocked all the streets leading to Grand Opera, while 
their magnificent palaces decked the landscape on every hand. 
Then from one end of this country to the other arose a mighty 
shout from every protected wage earner, those in the steel busi- 
ness crying the loudest, "Long live the high protective tariff and 
its founders the Republican party." 



Do any of you recall that workmen's milleninm? 

The Democratic party denies it and from its foundation has 
fought this monster, the high protective tariff. The demand of 
special privilege run mad. Against it we place the declaration 
of Thomas Jefferson, equal rights for all, special privileges to 
none, and declare that there never was nor will there ever be 
any legal or justifiable ground for tariff taxes or any other kind 
of taxes, than the Democratic ground based on the necessity of 
the government honestly and economically administered. All 
unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. Any other doctrine is 
repugnant to the whole theory of government and the genius of 
the states. 

This is not a contest against the rich. Every man has the right 
to amass wealth by honest means. If he has the skill and energy 
to acquire money, it is his duty to do so and no one can properly 
object nor is he any the worse because he enjoys the comforts 
and embellishments of life. But the high tariff pretender, only 
deserves to be scorned, who pleads for special privileges under 
pretense of benefitting the workingman, while he pockets the 
money as the beneficiary. We demand that he stand out in the 
open, avow his fraud and not hide behind his employees. 

A Real Commonwealth. 

We speak of the common wealth of Pennsylvania and 
Democrats can freely use the term, but our high tariff stand pat 
Republican friends and those in places of official responsibility, 
ought only to speak and issue their manifestoes "In the name and 
by the authority of the Snecialwealth of Pennsylvania." 

The sheriffs of the state who still resort to that antiquated 
method of announcing the election ought to say, "God save the 
Specialwealth of Pennsylvania," oblivious in the future as they 
have been in the past to the fact that we ever had or ever will 
have a Republican congress, the chief duty of which was anything 
more than looking after that wealth by high a protective tariff and 
I would like to know what is the use of a governor proclaiming 
or a sheriff shouting when a Republican congress is on the job? 
If it is not, and we now are all very glad it is not, it certainly 
won't do them any good as the Democrats are looking after the 
commonwealth of this country. 

Now what other claim does the Republican party attempt to 
make why the protective tariff is a blessing? That party tells 
us that a reduction of tariff duties will bring on a panic as it has 
done before. 

I, however, challenge any successful contradiction to the fact 
that every panic in this country since i860 (and there were none 



previous worthy the name) has occurred under a high protec- 
tive tariff and the higher the tariff the greater the panic. 

The history of this country proves that the Republican party 
is entitled to claim that it is the G. O. P., and which rightly in- 
terpreted means, greatest on panics. 

Mills That Should Close. 

Before I prove this I want to say, that I am surprised there 
has not been since the passage of the Underwood Bill, the clos- 
ing of a large number of mills. They ought to have closed years 
ago. The Democratic party does not propose to keep antiquated, 
improperly located, inefficient mills, under incompetent manage- 
ment, running at the expense of the mass of the people on gov- 
ernment pap, when other mills for the same purpose up to date 
in every respect, don't need it and hence those mills ought to 
go out of business and the sooner the better. And the more C. M. 
Schwab and his kind get afraid of the new tariff law, the better 
for the country. 

When a mill quits, read the headlines and hear the wail from 
the unthinking and those who want the government to support 
them. Don't be alarmed, that game is over for good. Remem- 
ber also that Secretary Redfield has promised that where any 
manufacturer closes or reduces wages without justifiable cause, 
there will be investigation and prosecution if necessary. So they 
had better be good in more ways than one. 

Again, to put an end to that kind of graft a good long panic 
would be justified ; one good panic and free trade or freedom ■ 
of trade which is the same thing and this country would never 
have another panic. So you see we are happy if we don't get 
a panic and you can't discourage us if we do. Of one thing we 
are positive, we are bound to have this government run on honest 
principles in the interest of all the people. 

The Right Point of View. 

We have now got a man in the White House. The peer of 
any who ever sat there, surrounded by a cabinet and a congress, 
tried and true. All working with a single point of view, to pro- 
tect all the people in all their rights and free them from unneces- 
sary burdens. The work accomplished is phenomenal. _ Space 
will not permit me to recall it. The greatest tariff bill since the 
Walker tariff of 1846. The currency bill to follow, and necessary 
to complete the tariff legislation, with the prosecution of the 
trusts and the imprisonment of the trust violators of the law. 
After that we will have some three more years of this adminis- 
tration to bring this government back to fundamental principles. 



Excuse this digression. And now to prove what I said about 
panics. 

Republican High Tariff Panics. 

With the Republicans in control and under Republican high 
tariff bills we have had the following panics. 

The great panic which gave "Black Friday" to history occurred 
in September, 1869. 

The panic of 1873 started by the failure of J. Cook & Co. 
occurred eleven months after Grant's election for a second term. 
It lasted for six years. The failures amounted to one billion one 
hundred and ninety-nine million dollars or $199,833,333 an- 
nually. The protective tariff was the highest known. An ideal 
Republican panic. Gentlemen please explain it on the theory that 
a low tariff makes panics. 

From 1881 to 1886 there were labor strikes involving 22,304 
plants and 1,323,000 workmen. 

The panic of 1893 began prior to the presidential election of 
1892 under the McKinlev bill with the Sherman Silver Purchase 
Act as a chief contributing cause. It was a money trust panic, 
inaugurated by Wall Street to secure the repeal of the Sherman 
act, with incidental additional hard times due to the McKinley 
Law. The McKinley Bill became a law October 6, 1890 and 
for Republicans to charge the panic of 1893 to the tariff bill 
known as the Wilson Law which went into effect August the 
27, 1894, when the panic began in November, 1890, is like claim- 
ing that the high price of eggs this fall is due to the fact that we 
will have dry weather next spring. 

If thirty days after the passage of the Underwood tariff bill of 
1913 we had been in a panic like the McKinley panic of 1890, 
what a howl would have gone up. Something like this you would 
have heard : "I told you so, those wicked Democrats, what else 
could you expect. Boies Penrose sure thing now for the Sen- 
ate." Back once again to the flesh pots of Egypt. 

The panic of 1907 with Terrible Teddy in the White House, is 
remembered by all. The shin plaster panic with bread lines on 
the side thousands in dire want and charities taxed to their utmost. 

From 1908 to 1912 under Taft and as a fitting climax to high 
protection and "the best tariff ever" we had a sort of continuing 
first stroke of paralysis, hope it won't get any worse, not near as 
bad as 1873, consolation prize, universally extended sympathetic, 
commiseration, fellow feeling premonition congratulation, that we 
were all glad we got through without going into voluntary or in- 
voluntary bankruptcy and with our lives. In return therefore we 
subsequently allowed Taft and his high protection party to carry 
two states, Utah and Vermont. 



Free Trade. 

Free trade is freedom of trade. It is as natural for a man to 
trade as it is for him to live. To kill a man is not as great a 
crime as to kill trade by legislation. Trade should be encouraged 
in every way possible. There is free trade in every town, city 
and state in the United States. There was a time when it did not 
exist, because the Republicans of those days did not like it. By 
the constitution of 1787 it was established throughout the whole 
nation. The same arguments were then used against trading 
between the states, as since used by the special interests against 
world wide trade. 

This legislation gave us greater territory, it prevented bicker- 
ings and warfare, and added greatly to the total wealth of the 
nation. 

If Canada had been annexed, as Louisiana was, as one of the 
states or we had traded in it as in other states, would we have 
been any poorer or the workingman worse off? If we would an- 
nex all Europe and trade with it would we be any poorer? 

If we are afraid of the pauper labor of Canada under protec- 
tion, what would be our attitude if Canada was annexed? And 
so with England, Germany, France or any European country. 
Would any of us be alive, if this was the United States of the 
World ? 

If the old doctrine of a tariff between the states had prevailed, 
and been of necessity extended to counties, would we not now be 
afraid of the pauper labor of Cumberland, Lebanon and Juniata 
counties ? 

What makes the Atlantic so much more to be dreaded than the 
Susquehanna? What would have been the situation if no ocean 
had rolled between? 

Would the American workingman be safer if we had annexed 
foreign countries, provided we filled up the ocean, or what 
should we do in that case, with land across the sea and a sea to 
cross? "Oh the cruel, crawling foam." 

Never any tariff on labor, would the foreigner in this country, 
feel safer, if his brother in the old country had to take the time 
and walk on dry land to America to compete with him, rather 
than have him, as is now the case, come under contract, steamed 
across ? 

While the Republican party has any say, it is advisable, that 
this country never own any territory in Europe, or the next thing 
that party will be advocating the filling up of the ocean, to protect 
the American workingman, and bring us more prosperity. 

Is there any reason for this outrage? Temporarily, yes, the 
needs of the government. Any other excuse ? Yes one, the same 

13 



old cry of the aristocratic party, special loot for themselves. If 
they had any national pride they would be ashamed of them- 
selves. 

"What avail the plow and sail, 
Or land or life, if freedom fail." 

A Constitutional Government. 

The shackles are breaking and the fight will not end until the 
trade in this country is free. We want the government described 
by Andrew Jackson when he said : 

"It is not in a splendid government supported by powerful mon- 
opolies and aristocratical establishments that the people will find 
happiness or their liberties protected, but in a plain system, void 
of pomp, protecting all, and granting favors to none, dispensing 
its blessings like the dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in 
the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such 
a government that the genius of our people requires, such a one 
only under which our states may remain for ages to come, united, 
prosperous and free." 

A government prophesied by Honorable William Jennings 
Bryan, the foremost and most able educator in this country, a 
genial citizen, a man who has consistently and heroically fought 
for principles and won. 

Who cannot be cajoled, brow-beaten or bribed, the soul of 
honor, a prince among statesmen, the greatest living American. 
In closing his argument in congress, on the tariff, on March 
16, 1892 Mr. Bryan said: 

"It must be a just government which a free people can love 
and upon which they can rely that the nation is to be preserved. 
We cannot put our safety in a great navy: we cannot put our 
safety in expensive fortifications along a sea coast thousands 
of miles in extent, nor can we put our safety in a great stand- 
ing army that would absorb in idleness the toil of the men it 
protects. A free government must find its safety in happy and 
contented citizens, who, protected in their rights and free from 
unnecesasry burdens, will be willing to die that the blessings 
which they enjoy may be transmitted to their posterity." 

Thomas Jefferson, that greatest of statesman, and most suc- 
cessful of politicians, tersely expressed the true purpose of gov- 
ernment when he said : 

With all the blessings, what more is necessary to make us a 
happy and prosperous people? Still, one thing more, fellow- 
citizens, a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men 
from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to 
regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and 
shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, 



this is the sum, of good government, and this is necessary to close 
the circle of our felicities. 

That is the inspiration of the Democratic party; that is its 
aim and object. If it comes, Mr. Chairman into power in all 
the departments of this government it will not destroy industry; 
it will not injure labor; but it will save to the men who produce 
the wealth of the country, a larger portion of that wealth. It 
will bring prosperity and joy and happiness, not to a few, but to 
everyone, without regard to station or condition. The day will 
come, Mr. Chairman, the day will come when those who an- 
nually gather about this Congress seeking to use the taxing power 
for private purposes will find their occupation gone, and mem- 
bers of Congress will meet here to pass laws for the benefit of all 
the people, That day will come and in that day, to use the lan- 
guage of another, 'Democracy will be king' Long live the king." 

The Democratic Party Asks a Fair Field and No Favor. 

The Crimes of special privilege, the evils of governmental 
waste, grown stronger after years of favoritism, cannot be re- 
formed in a day. Let us then be fair. The Democratic party 
each year should show progress in the direction of desired re- 
forms for the benefit of .all the people, and ought to be given 
at least half the time to perfect the government and bring it 
back to a government of the people, that the Republican party 
has taken, to pervert if from being a government, where the 
people are united, prosperous and free. 

And now in conclusion, Mr. President : 

"What do we want? Our daily bread, 
And trade untrammel'd as the wind, 
And from our ranks shall spirits start, 
To aid the progress of mankind." 



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